


Once Is An Anomaly, Twice Is A Pattern

by spideywriting (catch_you_later)



Series: whumptober 2019 [6]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Dragged away, Gen, Hurt Peter Parker, Kidnapped Peter Parker, Kidnapping, Parent Tony Stark, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Protective Tony Stark, Rescue, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Whumptober 2019, do not copy to another site, no.6
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2020-11-27 02:24:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20940749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catch_you_later/pseuds/spideywriting
Summary: Old drawings, father-son-moments and a kidnapping.





	Once Is An Anomaly, Twice Is A Pattern

**Author's Note:**

> Un-betaed

Many people often missed the tiny, but important details of Tony Stark’s home. They saw the big, expensive paintings, minimalist and equally expensive furniture and the astounding tech found around practically everywhere in the house.

They saw exactly what they wanted, what they expected to see in a billionaire’s home.

What they didn’t see was the details.

They missed that the living room back wall had a tiny drop of blue paint left from when Pepper and Tony had been arguing about the paint and Tony had dotted a spot of blue in the already painted wall out of spite. (It had dissolved into a paint war and in the end Pepper's opinion won, but they had left the dot as a reminder of the fun they'd had.) 

They missed the smaller drawings and paintings, made by many tiny hands from around the world, scattered in unassuming corners and halls. (Because Tony Stark read his fan mail personally, especially the ones from children and set them up all over to remind himself of the multitude of innocent eyes looking up to him, expecting him to be _better_.)

They missed it all, because in the end, they were just strangers who didn’t _know_ Tony.

Yet sometimes even the ones that _did_ know Tony missed some things.

* * *

It was lab Friday, and the thought of tinkering with new projects made Peter almost bounce out of his skin in excitement as he walked to the elevator. He wanted to make his web solution more durable, more alike to a real spider web, and he’d finally had a break-through thought today during history class, a new formula which he couldn’t wait to test.

Peter was basically skipping down the hall, rounding a corner, when he smacked into someone.

“Whoa, watch out, short stuff!”

The pair of strong arms around his biceps and his superhuman sense of balance were the only thing preventing him from crashing onto to the floor, though they did crash into the wall a bit, sending a couple of frames crashing down to the floor.

As the identity of the person he had bumped into registered (short stature, scent of metal and cologne, a faint blue light shining from their chest), he squeaked out a, “I’m so sorry, Mr. Stark! I wasn’t paying attention!”

A warm chuckle. “It’s okay kid, it happens. Just help me gather these up and we’re all good,” Mr. Stark said, stooping down to collect the fallen photo frames. Peter hastened to follow suit.

They collected the frames in silence for a while (it seemed that it was more frames had dropped than Peter had initially thought, _oops_), when he was stopped by a one photo. Or, actually it wasn’t a photo, but a _drawing_.

A drawing that _he_ had made, years back.

He traced the familiar lines of the red-and-yellow Iron Man armor and the dark grey hoodie next to it. (They looked more like red-yellow and grey-black blobs than humans, really, but he had been only nine, maybe ten years old back then.) He couldn't believe that for all the times he had walked down this same hallway, he had never noticed _this_. 

He found himself blurting out the words without meaning to; “You kept this?”

“Kept what?” Mr. Stark asked, still concentrated on picking up and hanging the rest of the frames, which, now that Peter really looked at them, all contained drawings. Children’s drawings, by the look of them. Mr. Stark turned and spotted the one Peter was gazing at.

“Oh, that one. Yeah, it’s made by this one kid I saved in the Stark Expo back 2010, it actually had a pretty touching letter attached to it, the kid had clearly put quite an effort to it, so I decided… to put it up here. Why? What’s it matter to—"

Peter held up the drawing, pointing at the shaky letters at the corner spelling ‘PP’.

Mr. Stark stared at them blankly. Walked closer, knelt on the floor across him. Stared at the letters, fingers rising up to trace them before his gaze flashed up to Peter’s face, eyes widening in realization.

“That…that was you?”

Peter smiled shakily, overcome by the fact that his favorite superhero had not only read his letter and received his drawing, but put it on the wall, remembering them even after so many years.

“Yeah. Uncle Ben and Aunt May had gotten the tickets for us as a birthday gift.”

Mr. Stark’s face fell in dismay.

“Not such a good gift, then.”

Peter’s smile only widened.

“No. It was the best gift; I got saved by my favorite superhero.”

He beamed at Mr. Stark and slowly the shadow of regret faded from his hero’s eyes, replaced by a small but genuine smile. In turn, Peter’s smile stretched until it almost hurt. He basked in the moment, his mentor’s smile and the feeling of being cared about settling like a warmly glowing talisman over his heart, warding off any negative emotions.

Eventually, the moment ended with Mr. Stark clearing his throat awkwardly, patting Peter’s arm and mumbling about getting back to work.

They rose up, Mr. Stark looking embarrassed, but pleased, and Peter radiating a quiet joy. They put the frames back in place, but when it was time to hang up Peter’s drawing, Mr. Stark hesitated. He took it from the wall and stated nonchalantly, “You know, I think this would actually look better in the lab,” all the while being very careful in avoiding looking at Peter. He turned around and started walking to the elevator without waiting for a response.

Peter, not deterred by his abruptness, ducked his head, hiding his delighted grin, before jogging after his mentor.

They didn’t get further than a couple of strides before an ominous tingle traveled down Peter’s spine and there was a _loud_ _flare_ that burned onto his retinas and bopped his eardrums and then everything went black.

* * *

Tony’s mouth tasted like a horrible combination of coconut and scorched iron, bringing flashes of other situations he had woken up like this. The convoy attack. The surgery. Being poisoned by the very thing that kept his heart beating. Falling from the space all the way down to Earth. The coldness of Siberia.

They brought him back gasping for breath, his hand scrambling to his chest, grasping for the reassurance of the smooth surface of the arc reactor. It was still there, casting a steady light into the smoke lingering in the hallway. Onto the unmoving form of his young charge.

“Peter,” he choked, fear constricting his throat, his shout shriveling into a raspy whisper.

The boy didn’t move.

A sob sliced the air.

It took a few seconds for him to connect his blurring eyesight to the violent expansions of his chest and the ripping sobs.

“P-Peter, _please_ wake up.” His voice broke.

And Peter stayed on his side, unmoving.

His mind filled with horrible pictures of an unnaturally limp, lifeless body, stilled chest and forcibly dulled eyes, all the endless brightness and energy snuffed out by the inevitable concreteness of death. He couldn’t breathe. Not when he wasn’t sure if Peter was breathing.

He had to go to him.

Tony put his shaking hands on the floor, pushing his upper body off the floor when a heavy boot slammed onto his back.

“What—"

A group of black-clad, masked figures run past him.

Right towards Peter.

Suddenly he found his voice again.

“…no. No, no, NO, WHAT ARE YOU _DOING_, STAY AWAY FROM HIM!”

The figures continued on completely ignoring his yells.

They rolled Peter over – and Tony was glad to see his chest still rising steadily – and stabbed a needle into his arm without an ounce of hesitation.

Tony had never regretted anything more than not putting on the Iron Man bracelets that morning.

The only thing he could do now was shout baseless threats and struggle against the weight keeping him pinned down. Powerless. Helpless.

When he saw one of the figures wrapping their arms around Peter in a mockery of an embrace and starting to drag him away, in a rush of adrenaline and desperation he almost managed to throw off the boots and hands keeping him in place.

At the sound of his increased struggling, the figure that had administered the – drug or whatever it was – turned to look at him. Even with the balaclava and the glasses obscuring their face, he could sense ruthless coldness oozing from the figure. As he stared straight at the pitch black abyss of a cold-blooded killer, the figure drew a pistol from their belt and calmly, emotionlessly, shot Peter in the leg.

The horrified _NO_ that teared away from his lungs ricocheted through the hallway and even made some of the figures flinch from the sheer volume, but Peter – Peter hadn’t even twitched.

It was almost like he was already dead.

And so it was that as the figures restarted dragging his child away, all he could do was watch them and the frighteningly large trail of blood forming under Peter’s leg.

It was a relief, when one of the people holding him down punched him unconscious.

* * *

When he came to, he was faced with Pepper’s wide, red-rimmed, frightened eyes.

“…have you been crying again?”

Pepper’s face crumbled.

“They took Peter. They _took_ him, Tony.”

The memories slammed into him, sprung him up from the floor and led him to the lab where he manually rebooted FRIDAY and promptly started scouring every possible source available for the location of his kid, starting with tracing the Stark watch he had given the kid as an obligatory gift after the mess with the Vulture last year.

By some unbelievable, marvelous miracle, they hadn’t taken the watch off and they weren’t even that far away.

In some remote corner of his mind, he was aware that he should call for backup.

He ignored it.

Just like he ignored Pepper’s attempts at persuading him from flying to the kid right away.

Besides, it only took one look at his panic-wide eyes, white-knuckled hands and trembling jaw for Pepper to understand.

“Give them hell,” she said before he stepped into his armor and shot off towards Bronx.

* * *

Upon arrival, he made short work of the guards and continued storming the warehouse until he laid eyes on the original kidnappers and a barely awake, still bleeding (_he’s alive, he’s alive, he’s alive_) Peter.

One of the kidnappers grabbed a handful of Peter’s brown, messy curls and held a gun threateningly to his head.

Something in Tony, something that had been stretched very thin from the moment the flash bomb went off, _snapped_.

He lets out a hysterical, half-mad chuckle before his face hardens into an iron mask of pure _fury_.

“No. You don’t get to do that. You came to MY HOUSE! And you stole _MY CHILD_!”

A deathly silence.

“Now, you face the consequences.”

The drone he had sent ahead knocked the gun off from Peter’s head as he deployed the one-target fine-control missiles, electrocuting all of the kidnappers until they were writhing messes on the warehouse floor. (He had considered killing them, but that would be too _easy_. They deserved the suffering and a lifetime behind bars.)

He didn’t stop to watch them suffer, though. Instead, he bee-lined to his kid, just in time to catch him before he face-planted on the floor.

“Kid, kid, stay awake. You need to stay awake, Peter. No going to la-la land, nuh-uh. You need to stay awake for me buddy.” He found himself babbling as he held the kid upright and applied pressure to the thigh wound. “The emergency services will be here soon. I called the cavalry on the way here. Helen and Brucie are going to take good—“

“—nk u, M’r. St’rk.”

“What was that, Peter? No, wait, no matter, you shouldn’t be speaking—”

“Th’nk 'u f’r savin’ me. ‘gain.”

The kid’s lips were, absurdly, infuriatingly, curved into a _smile_.

Tony couldn’t help but laugh at this silly, endearing, absolutely _impossible_ boy.

“Anytime, kiddo. Anytime.”

**Author's Note:**

> A day late, but here it is!
> 
> If you liked it, please drop me a kudo and/or a comment!


End file.
